CYNISM. “An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity”—that being the case, cynics are generally unpleasant people. Then again, those who possess wit and attitude turn out to be the most intriguing characters. Case in point—writer Jessica Zafra. It’s her off-kilter but spot-on perception about every topic under the sun that makes her a good read.
When it comes to spreading the spawns of the raging mind, Zafra has conquered the media in all its forms—print, radio, television, and currently the Web as a weekly columnist for InterAksyon.com.
Moreover, the woman won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Short Story three times.
But many know Zafra from her books like the “Manananggal Terrorizes Manila,” and the nine-book Twisted series, which is a compilation of her short stories and columns, an amusing take on the day-to-day events of her life and ours. One I found thought provoking and quite memorable was about Filipinos ruling the world.
But how and why is better read than said, trust me.
Now, she is out there again with two new books — “The Stories So Far” and “Geek vs. Jocks.”
The Play! pool chatted with Zafra before she took the stage for the Cebu Literary Festival recently at Ayala Center Cebu. Here, meet the author behind the words, and wonder what makes her “twisted.”
Jessica Zafra (Photo by Philip Acharon Lapinid)
Which books or writers inspire you?
I get inspired if something makes me think of other things outside my own life. So I read a lot of fiction. I watch a lot of movies. And lately television programming… a lot of shows are better than the movies coming out now. I watch a lot of TV series. For the books, my favorite author just died, his name is James Salter. I love his novels and stories, he was 90 so it’s not really expected. He managed to do everything in his lifetime—he flew a fighter plane in the Korean war, he produced movies, he directed movies and written books… so there’s really no regrets. And there‘s this Danish writer that I like, her name is Isak Dinesen, also known as Karen Dinesen, and she also wrote “Out of Africa,” a movie that bore the hell out of me. I actually like a lot of writers… I’m reading a book right now by Scottish author Kate Atkinson. She’s very prolific. She writes literary novels and detective novels. I like her stuff.
How about movies?
I write movie reviews so I watch everything. I have to just say that “Jurassic World” was really stupid especially in comparison to “Jurassic Park.” The fact that the lead characters in “Jurassic Park” were paleontologists and mathematicians, and then in “Jurassic World” the lead is a marketing person and the trainer… it tells you how much human intelligence has gone down in the last 20 years.
There’s a proliferation of young adult books. what’s your say on this?
I don’t like to label. Whether you’re a teenager or a kid, you read according to your level.
If you’re 10 years old and you want to read “War and Peace,” go ahead. I don’t like the idea of taking a 10-year-old to the Young Adult section and telling him that it’s what he’s supposed to read. No. A child should be able to choose. Of course, there are some good young adult books. But if the child wants to read books where people are dying and cry from the first to the last page, go ahead. If you want to read idiotic vampire romance, go ahead. If the child wants to read “Crime and Punishment,” nothing should stop him. If the child wants to read Proust, sure! As a child I started reading fairy tales, and then explored. I started reading sci-fi fairly early… like Star Trek, which was on a rerun when I was a kid. You read stories based from the Star Trek episodes, and then you want more complicated sci-ence fiction.
If you were to choose an author as mentor, who would that be?
My mentor was Teddy Boy Locsin, who was my editor… although he has fallen into laziness and sloth and hasn’t written much lately. He was my editor and publisher for a long time when I started writing columns. One great thing about him is that every time he travelled, he would bring back books that he’ll give to his staff. He would read them, too. It would be embarassing not to read them… what if he asks you about it. I read a lot of books that he recommended. Also, he believes in the classics. Under his guidance I read a lot of books. There aren’t a lot of people who will let you read a book like Herodotus now.
So what book comes to mind based on a genre, say the classics?
Do you mean classics with a capital C or small C. Because classics would be Greek and Roman literature in translation… Odyssey and the Iliad. Classics with the small C would be like those of Jane Austen.
How about early American literature?
Well, early American literature is quite young, and here you have Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Charles Dickens.
Jessica Zafra
How about sci-fi?
Sci-fi is fairly a young genre, although the Victorians has sci-fi. I would consider “Frankenstein” as science fiction… and note that it was written by a woman. My favorite is “Dune” by Frank Herbert. I like to mention it a lot, because these days, if you don’t put books in the public consciousness, they’ll fade away and die.
Lately I went to a bookstore and noticed that they didn’t have books by Graham Greene… it worries me… does it mean people don’t read Graham Greene anymore? Is it time to bring another Graham Greene movie just to make sure people will continue to read?
Are the bookstores to blame for this?
Bookstores are retail outlets. So they tend to stock only if people will buy. So I don’t really fault them even when sometimes I go to the store and I don’t find anything I want. I tend to go to bookstores when there’s this new book from an author that I like. For instance, Kate Atkinson or David Mitchell or Ian McEwan.
And the great thing now is… say, when you read a review from the New York Times, when you go to the store, usually the book is already there.
What’s your take on e-books?
I always say that I like to read printed books. There’s this author, Dorothy Parker, and she said… this is not a book to be taken lightly but to be thrown across the room with great force. I feel that if I hate a book I should be able to throw it across the room… and there are books that I have thrown across the room. If I had a Kindle it would break. Also, I like printed books because I like to skim. There’s actually a scientific explanation why books smell like vanilla… something to do with chemicals released when paper ages.
Do you still take pleasure in covering your books with plastic?
Not anymore. It’s such a humid climate When you cover your book in plastic, moisture gets trapped between the plastic and the cardboard cover, and the plastic fuses to the paper, so when you want to replace the plastic, the cover goes with it.
Tell us about your self publishing adventures?
For a long time my books have been published by Anvil, which is owned by National Bookstore, and because Anvil believes that my audience is mostly students and young professionals they like to keep the prices of the books down. I’ve always wanted a hardcover book, and they aren’t going to give it to me because of cost concerns. So I did a little research and realized that you can publish a hardcover book quite cheaply. And also… I know this sounds ungrateful… but the designs of my books have been fairly old, and the paper, it’s like Soviet-era toilet paper that if you read it three times it would fall apart and you’ll have to get a new copy. It’s really about good material, good paper, nice design. I want to have a nice looking book so I went out and did that. And this digital age is making it possible to do away with the middleman—you publish yourself and sell yourself. You find out that if you sell your own creations you end up in the long run creating your own money than on royalties. The thing about the Philippine market is that we are really not big readers. Here, if you sell 3,000 copies it would already be considered a bestseller… which is really sad for a hundred million people. What are the ninety- nine million nine-hundred and ninety-seven plus doing?
Tell us about the two new books that you published yourself?
One is a collection of short stories which is why it’s called “The Stories So Far.” My first publication was a collection of stories written when I was in high school and college called “Manananggal Terrorizes Manila.” That’s my excuse, because when I read it, they are so juvenile and I was a juvenile. Over the years I have written short stories, many of them are not published so I though that was that. As for “Geeks vs. Jocks, it’s essentially the same subject matter covered in “Twisted,” which is about books, movies, super things that happen to me and my friends, and tennis, which I have expanded to other sports.
Do you recall the moment when you realized that you were born to write?
That’s easy, I was eight years old. I’ve always been anti-social so I’d like to read about how funny it is to be anti-social. I am not on Facebook—that’s how anti-social I am. I entertained myself by reading because until I was 12 years old, I had no siblings. Reader’s Digest was pretty much the reading material in our house and a few other books. So when I run out of books to read I thought of writing to entertain myself. I enjoyed it so much and said that this is what I wanted to do.
How do you deal with writer’s block?
I am a professional writer. Writer’s block equals being homeless and starving to death. I have to make myself write. The quality varies because sometimes you feel lazy, but as a professional writer you somehow have to make yourself write.
Do you manage to produce something every day?
I already fought myself to write every day, and seriously I feel bad when I don’t write something. I always carry a small notebook so I write anywhere… sometimes I am writing in line, which is really annoying.
Do you recommend writing as a career to a Filipino kid?
Hell, no! It’s hard to make a living out of writing. The only reason I’m allowed to is because I kept at it so long that its kinda late to change careers at this point. But I don’t recommend it as a career especially now that everyone has a blog, everyone has a social media page. People have gotten used to the idea of getting the writing for free. To professional writers, good luck! If you freelance for magazines, say you’re doing an interview of this personality, the team doing the magazine will consist of the writer, photographer, stylist, makeup artist… sadly, the writer gets paid least of all. So if you’re going to pay me crap, forget it. I’d rather not get published in your magazine to get paid P2,000 for my hard work. Sorry.
Being anti social, how do you deal with interviews and promotions?
It’s work. And it’s rude if the paper asks to interview you and you say no. There’s a big difference—being anti-social and being rude. And also because I only deal with people I want to talk to… so I am actually flattering you. Really, if I don’t want to talk to someone, why would I speak to them? I’m not exactly nice—which sounds annoying—but I’m not rude. I am polite.
And people posing for pictures with you?
I hate pictures. I personally hate selfies. If people want to have a photo with me, I say, “Interview me na lang” and you find that people will say no. They just want the easy thing, and I don’t believe in taking the easy way.
Jessica Zafra (seated) with (from left): Hendri Go of Little Boy Productions, Joanna Velasco Deutsch of Happy Garaje,
performance artist/cultural activist Carlos Celdran and artist Mark Deutsch of Happy Garaje.
How do you reward yourself after finishing a book?
I don’t have to reward myself. I am lucky that my work doesn’t feel like real job, like digging graves or writing marketing proposals. I actually enjoy my job.
Can you tell us about your hospitalization last year?
That was the most stupid drama of the most stupid dramas. I had the flu. What happens when you have the flu? You don’t want to eat but apparently I am one of those people who cannot just drink water and not eat because what happens is your brain is powered by electrolytes, sodium and pottassium. If you do not eat, you do not replenish your stored sodium and pottassium. So my electrolyte level went down to a dangerous degree and since I was ill, it went down so low that my brain just decided to shut down. But because I had an appointment, I was getting dressed… I knew something was wrong because I looked at my shoes and there were too many shoes. I couldn’t decide what to wear… and when I got outside, I realized I was wearing tsinelas, which I never do. As I was going down the stairs, that’s when my brain shut down… My brain was telling me that the last step on the floor is just too big for me to cross. So I sat on the steps and my brain shut down.
Fortunately, I lived in a building with a maintenance staff, and they found me. They thought I must have suffered from heatstroke so they brought me ice water and stuff. I was not speaking; I was just sitting there, like stone. So they took me to the ER where basically people panicked and treated it like some kind of huge epidemic, when all they could do is trace my sodium and pottassium level. I had all sorts of complicated diagnosis even if it’s really just an electrolyte imbalance.
What was your reaction when people started soliciting help for you on social media?
It’s really embarassing. On the other hand, one is floored by the generosity of total strangers who would give you money. It would be the height of rudeness if I say “No, I don’t want your money!” Thank you for your money. Right! What offended me was because there was no clearing house for the news… and my sister is like me. When people would ask for an interview about my condition, she would decline. So people got news from the strangest quarters, people who did not have access to real information. Hence all these theories na people who said na I had a stroke, people who said I had fallen on the stairs, people who said na I was alone in my house, and they had to break down the door.
The impression was that you’re broke and you couldn’t afford the medications.
It is true that I don’t have a health insurance. And this is the main reason why you don’t want to be writers… Whatever I make, it’s spent, no savings. My lifestyle does not account for suddenly going to the hospital, and of course, you put me in an expensive room with the most expensive treatment known to man. So it’s true, I could not have afforded it. But I have the most fabulous set of friends on earth and they would have covered it. I know that it’s really kapal but I do rely on my friends.
What other artistic pursuits are you looking at doing? A bucket list of things to do?
I hate that term “bucket list” because I have no intention of dying. You people who are mortal, go ahead! I also don’t like those 1,000 Places To Visit Before You Die stuff… that’s the lingering effect of having been in the hospital for eight days. They tested me for every possible cause why my sodium level dove down. They ran every test possible on me. I don’t even have high blood pressure. I eat what I want… well, I eat little of things. I guess the cause of all sickness is stress because you’re not doing what you want. If you’re doing what you want you’re in perfect health. Let’s not worry about not fitting into a size zero, or not having a Chanel.